


Windfall

by VolxdoSioda



Category: Hades (Video Game 2018)
Genre: Ficlet, Gen, Good Ending AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-12
Updated: 2020-02-12
Packaged: 2021-02-26 11:48:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,288
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22683178
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VolxdoSioda/pseuds/VolxdoSioda
Summary: Zagreus gets out.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 71





	Windfall

**Author's Note:**

> Listen, sometimes you have to gently take canon by the hand, look it in the eye and go "No."
> 
> (Also found family is my weakness, and you will never convince me Dionysus and Hermes would turn Zagreus away. NEVER.)

It's a cold day. Rainy, and the winds that blow in through the window smell of growth, and a clean start. For a long time, Zagreus lays in bed and breathes it all in. The warmth of the bed beneath him tempts him back to sleep, but he's not really sleepy any longer. He can feel his small garden on the balcony drinking up the rain as it falls, thirsty and eager for it. He's kept it dry because he knew a storm would be coming soon, one with gentle winds and easy rainfall, and there was no reason to let such a chance go by. 

He'll make sure to offer up thanks to Zeus later. Even if his extended family would rather pretend he doesn't exist, that doesn't mean Zagreus needs to do the same. He's aware of the Gods and their roles now, knows their aspects and what they control. He asks for nothing from any of them; hasn't since the inevitable moment when they all realized who he was, and what he sought, and almost all of them turned their backs and snubbed him. Not all of them - Dionysus and Hermes both regularly chat with him, and Artemis remains cordial when he _does _cross her path, but the others have refused to acknowledge him.

Apparently, none of their prides could survive the fact that he came seeking his mother, and not them. For anyone else, it would have spelled disaster, or sure death. Ares and Aphrodite certainly wanted to take a chunk out of him, for his audacity. Ares tried, and Zeus half-heartedly tried to rein him in - at least until Zagreus killed the older god in self-defense. And then, just like that, everything went quiet.

It was Dionysus who eventually found him, and offered him a bottle of wine, and a quiet word. _"They tend not to like being reminded that there are Gods out there stronger than they. Consider this a ceasefire, of sorts. You keep to your side, and they'll keep theirs."_

_"And you?"_

_"A messenger, and a friend. My own origins are equally muddy, so you can consider me a sympathetic ear. By the by, Hermes says hello."_

Life went on. Zagreus has lived on, immortal like all the rest, moving through the times. He eventually moved out of Greece altogether, beyond the boundaries of a world he'd known for several hundred years, and went west. He spent some time in the eastern regions too, but the Gods there tended to side-eye him harder than most, and so he bowed out before he accidentally started a war or intruded further.

West, at least, was quiet. Peaceful. Even if he never really forgot his roots. He is Life and Blood, and some of that goes hand-in-hand with Ares and Hades still. But for the most part he lives himself a quiet existence, tending to his plants, and small animals in the region, and learning the world as best he can. 

He did find his mother, eventually. His first job, before the Gods had learned who he was, he'd been visiting a seaside town and saw her at a little diner near the coast. She'd been sitting there, dressed up and laughing with an older gentleman. She'd looked positively radiant, and when the gentleman had reached out and kissed her hand, Zagreus had recognized him.

Poseidon.

And in that moment, he'd flashed back to the note he'd found - _a house by the coast with a little garden. _He'd wondered then, as the two had sat there, blissfully unaware of him, if the reason his mother had left had less to do with him and the Underworld, and more to do with someone else.

It was the last time he saw Persephone. Then the Gods had discovered his origins, and Demeter had come to his doorstep. He'd waited for the inevitable moment she would cast him aside too, or try to strike at him. But instead, the older woman had seemed... sad. 

_"My daughter has cast shame upon her house, this day. And the others, in their arrogance, have sullied their own names. If it be agreeable to you, I would prefer to do otherwise."_

Demeter had been looking for Persephone for the longest time. The truth of Zagreus' existence had caused her to stop, for she had been one of the few Zagreus had regularly gifted Nectar as he'd moved through the underworld. She knew of his nature, of his personality, of his goals. 

And she desperately wanted a family again. Someone with Life in their blood, someone who could help her tend to the earth. Zagreus was his father's son, but he was also his mother's in some regard, and so Demeter turned to him. Maybe it was a manipulation, and maybe somewhere out there she laughs with the others of Olympus over a child that sought his mother. But maybe it isn't, and that is what Zagreus hangs his hopes on. That she is not doing this out of manipulation, but some genuine desire for closure.

He still helps her, even halfway across the world like he is. They still see each other, every so often when the seasons change. The winters are still bitingly cold when they come, but the seasons turn again, and the harvests are flush with crops. Disasters strike more often than not, as the world continues to change and the Gods war among each other, but Zagreus, in his own way, dives into the heart of the disaster as he once did to the Underworld, and saves what he can. Who he can.

Eventually, he gets out of bed, goes to turn the coffee pot on, peers out at the city while he waits. Wonders yet again what will await him when he finally dies. Because it will happen, one way or another. One day the Gods will get lucky, or maybe Zagreus will simply get tired, and stay when the next flood comes, or a wildfire engulfs the city. Maybe it'll be entirely accidental, and he'll get hit by a bus, or stabbed by some random person on the street. But it will happen, one day. 

He wonders if time has made his father quieter. If anyone still remembers him, misses him. If Nyx has turned cold without him there, if Hades still curses his name. He likes to think not - he doesn't offer tribute, but he offers thanks where he can, when it's appropriate. Sometimes it's been to his father, to the adoptive mother he had, to Hypnos or Thanatos or even Charon. He has no way of knowing if his wishes reach their ears, or if his voice is just throw together with countless others, never seen or heard. If everyone back below the earth has forgotten him, and when he dies he'll simply be other soul in a long list of lines, waiting to be seen and dismissed.

Maybe he'll be cast down to Tartarus. Or Asphodel, for his insolence. Maybe he won't even make it that far, maybe one of the Gods will catch him en-route, and he'll be subjected to torture for endless eons, until someone takes pity on him, and he's cast down into Hell. 

The coffee pot dings, and Zagreus goes to pour himself a cup. There's really no telling. When or where or how. All he can do is keep living one day at a time, and do his best to help the mortals around him. Make their lives a little brighter. Care for them like his family never did for him, and go quietly when it's his time.

But for now, Zagreus sits on the porch, drinks his coffee, and lets the rain do its work.


End file.
